Writers in the Storm

by Laura Drake

Compellingly showing thoughts is a topic I don’t see addressed often, but it’s done wrong so much that it’s become a pet peeve of mine. It’s like a cheese grater on the nerves. Once you see the difference between smooth, essential thoughts and "throw away" thoughts, you won’t be able to unsee them. And that’s a good thing for your writing.

Thoughts in exposition can be wonderful – they help your reader get to know your characters and have empathy for them. They can be a great way to reveal backstory in a pow kind of way. They can also be a great way to explode a secret on the page.

Some not-so-compelling ways...

Done wrong, thoughts on the page invite skimming and that’s the LAST thing you want. There are several ways to do it wrong. Below are a few.

Italics

Yes, I know there is no rule against putting thoughts in italics. But to me, it’s distracting. Since we use italics to show emphasis, for texts, news articles, etc., that can be a lot of drawing attention. Don’t use them for thoughts, too.

Too Many Thoughts

If you’re a fan of Margie Lawson (and if you’re not, you should be), you know she suggests highlighting thoughts in yellow. Choose any one chapter in the middle of your book and highlight the thoughts.

You will be shocked at how much is yellow. Too many thoughts tend to make a reader feel trapped in your character’s head. They slow the read, which is never a good thing. I believe it’s why many readers have an aversion to first person – too many thoughts! 

Unneeded Thoughts

As authors, we have a hard time judging when enough is enough. We tend to think the reader needs more information than they do.

Most importantly: This is the kind of thing that makes a reader ‘skim’ to get to the good parts.

How do you avoid this pitfall?

Example #1

          We’re in the hurricane’s path. It’s a solid Category 2 now, and it could get stronger.”

          I didn’t like the sound of that. “Do we need to evacuate?”

Who would like the sound of that? It’s a freakin’ hurricane! Doubly bad if you’re trying to increase tension in the scene. To increase tension—not a spare word!

Instead, tell us what we don’t know!

Example #2

          This guy is a legend in his own mind. I’ve seen some crap in my days, but he dishes it by the shovelful. “I’m so impressed with your body of work, Sir.”

          I’m good with diplomacy. My thoughts? Another thing entirely.

See how that last thought told you the obvious?

Done better:

          “I’m so impressed with your body of work, Sir.”

          And I’m even more impressed with my hyperbole super-power.

Backstory Thoughts

Backstory dumps are never good. They’re even worse in thoughts. Why? Think about it – how often do you go to bad memories in your thoughts? No more often than you have to, right? So does this sound like a legitimate thought?

      He remembered the blast of an IED, during his tour of duty in Iraq. He hadn’t wanted to enlist, but the judge said it was that or jail time. Didn’t seem fair. He’d only been driving the car, and he didn’t know his drunk buds meant to rob the gas station. But there he was, sweating under a fifty-pound pack, when the blast hit, throwing him in the air.

Dump-city, right? Sure the information tells us about the character, but not in a compelling way.

Backstory revised:

          Crouched behind the car, he rubbed the pain in his leg—a reminder of the IED that was the last time he’d come this close to death.

See how the above hints there IS backstory, without dumping backstory? The rest may be important about the character, but you can find places to slip in details down the road in this same compelling way.

Final Thought

Take the time to think about your character’s thoughts. I promise your writing will be better for it!

What do you think (pun not intended...)? Have you read writers who do great "thoughts on the page?" We invite you to share stellar thoughts you've written in the comments!

About Laura

Laura Drake is a hybrid author of 15 Romance and Women's Fiction. Her debut, The Sweet Spot, the 2014 Romance Writers of America® RITA® award. A city girl turned Texan, she's currently working on her accent. She's a wife, grandmother, and motorcycle chick in the remaining waking hours.

Her most recent novel, For Roger, is a Jodi Picoult-esque look at the right to die. 4.8 Stars on Amazon!

Photo Credits:

• Top photo and bio pic from Laura Drake
• "Too Many Thoughts" purchased from Depositphotos

by Gale Leach

Months ago, Ellen Buikema invited me to submit a post for Writers in the Storm. Honored, I agreed and began thinking about a suitable topic. Because I lack a history with this group, each time an idea surfaced, I’d search the WITS website and find it—posts on this site are very comprehensive—leaving me hunting for something else. Later, I reneged on my commitment. Ellen said she’d ask again.

The second time I fell short after committing to a blog post on WITS, I felt terrible, but I still hadn’t found a subject that hadn’t been covered. Also, this would be my first article, so I needed it to be good, to be worthy. As a newbie to the group, I felt somewhat intimidated. What made Ellen think I had valuable information to share, anyway?

Time went by, and she asked again. Feeling the trepidation of stepping into the limelight, I vowed once more to do it. I had a lot going on, but I knew the reason I hadn’t produced an article was something else. In the past, I’d always been reliable and could be counted on to come through on time with something extra.

What was wrong now?

1. Fear of the blank page? No. Give me a cursor, and I can write volumes.
2. Fear of failure? Possibly. My New England-ish upbringing’s strong work ethic drives me to be the best at whatever I do. When I fall short, I shame myself. 
3. The need to succeed/be respected? Also possibly. See #2, above.

Several approaches later, I settled on sharing what I’ve done while trying to conquer my problem—what stood in the way of producing this article. I believed others must share this issue, so solving it should be helpful.

After some self-psychoanalysis, I realized I have the same problem with other things I say I want to do but don’t: playing piano and hammered dulcimer, writing a new book, singing. I could go on. It’s a long list.

Yearning for Acclaim

For each of these pursuits, I discovered that I have in mind a target or goal that includes some element of acclaim. When I was young, I wanted to write the “great American novel”—a plain American novel wouldn’t do. I yearned to sing on stage to roaring applause and standing-room-only ovations—yet each time I sat to practice, my musicianship didn’t meet my expectations. I couldn’t get past not being perfect.

Then I thought back to a time when I once queried others in my writing critique group about why they wrote. A recent post on WITS by Jenny Hansen also examined this topic, and, like that post, the answers I received varied from “because I must” to “I want to headline the New York Times bestseller list.” My reasons fell between those camps: I’ve always needed to tell a story, and I wanted readers to love what I wrote. 

Sneaking Up on Myself

Yet I couldn’t embrace the notion that my early drafts, like musical practice, are not designed to be perfect but rather a means to that end. Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The first draft of anything is shit”—a reminder that writing is a process, not perfection—but I couldn’t embrace the notion that creating bad drafts was okay. Nevertheless, I began writing and continued reading.

(Let me note that sneaking up on myself has gotten me this far. Many sources say free writing loosens creativity, but it may have more to do with loosening the joints, preparing and following the ritual, so that muscle memory can take over and ideas begin to flow. In any case, I believe this blog post is shaping up.)

Caught in Our Own Headlights

In her wonderful book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says “Perfection … will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the chief obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of other people … are going to do a better job than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

Many of us seem to be caught in our own headlights. As a younger person, I had faith in my capacity to accomplish almost anything with determination and effort, and others had recognized my innate abilities. The concept of settling for less than my best was unfamiliar to me, as I’d been taught to strive for excellence. When could I be sure my work was good enough?

Cosmic Insignificance

As I struggled with this post, a newsletter arrived in my inbox. Oliver Burkeman describes his twice-monthly email, “The Imperfectionist,” as being about “productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.”

His book, 4,000 Weeks, is also worth every penny and every moment. I highly recommend his work if you struggle with perfectionism, or if you yearn to be more present in the moment.

This particular newsletter was titled “No big deal: why your cosmic insignificance is a wonderful thing,” and it describes several principles that converged to liberate my thinking:

We matter little in the cosmic scheme. [This realization] is really relaxing, because it's a reminder that … nothing I do or fail to do matters much at all—a realisation with its roots in Stoic philosophy, and other wisdom traditions.

Later in the newsletter, he says:

The (conscious or subconscious) belief that what you do is incredibly consequential has the effect of making the stakes too high to enjoy life … To be reminded of your cosmic insignificance therefore isn’t just relaxing, but actively empowering … It recalibrates the yardstick with which you measure what’s important from your perspective.

Recalibrating Our Yardsticks

I believe Burkeman and Lamott are right, and others have written similarly. Voltaire quoted an Italian sage: “le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” (the best is the enemy of the good) Questions sur l'Encyclopédie [fr], 1770: "Il meglio è l'inimico del bene".^[1] The quote subsequently appeared in his moral poem, La Bégueule. And Winston Churchill said, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.” Widely attributed to Churchill, source unknown.

My reading and now my personal experience say that letting go of the need to be perfect—recalibrating your yardstick—will liberate your writing process. Since none of us can achieve perfection—at least, not in this lifetime—accept that your writing will improve with practice and with editing. Embrace imperfection, and just keep writing.

(Thank you, Ellen, for your gentle nudges that helped me cross this hurdle. This blog post isn’t perfect, but it’s done!)

* * * * * *

About Gale

Writing The Art of Pickleball in 2005 launched Gale Leach’s career as an award-winning author. From 2011 to 2020, she also created her own company, Two Cats Press, which published the works of six Arizona authors, including seven of her own fantasy adventure novels for children and teens. Currently, she’s at work on a fantasy series that involves technology and magic, multiple worlds, and creatures you only thought were mythological.

Gale and her husband recently relocated to Texas, accompanied by a rescue dog, two rescue kittens, and a bearded dragon. Her interests outside of writing include singing, playing music, genealogy, reading, crafting, and many types of puzzles and games.

You can connect with Gale on social media or her website.

Author headshot by Kenneth Johnson of Kenneth Johnson Photography, Surprise, AZ

Top Image: Gemini_Generated_Image_xplacxplacxplacx.jpeg (using prompt: “Image of bright car headlights coming straight toward you on a foggy road”) subsequently modified using Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022.

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

Backstory – how much of what’s happened before our stories take place, do readers really need to understand our characters? Many newer writers fall into the trap of using too much backstory, with the author voice summarizing and explaining. Those with more experience, understanding the pitfalls of too much telling, can find their writing too sparse and leave readers stumbling through the narrative trying to piece together why a character is thinking and feeling as they do.

If you’ve been around WITS for very long, you know that I talk about deep point of view exclusively. So, how do we take backstory and apply it to deep point of view?

Deep POV wants to remove the author voice entirely. There’s no outside voice to explain or summarize the past or what’s motivating a character. Rather, deep POV wants readers limited to what the POV character can see, hear, know, feel, understand, learn, etc. And that can feel pretty limiting, but if we can stretch our creativity to remain in deep POV, the backstory can enhance the story experience without boring or losing readers.

Memories And Past Experiences Must Come To Mind Organically

In real life, our brain makes myriad connections to past experiences to help us navigate present circumstances.

• What has happened in the past that will help us understand the stakes in a given situation?
• How did we handle that in the past?
• What outcome are we looking for?

Our brains mostly do all this in split seconds, so quickly that we might not even be able to articulate all that’s gone into a decision unless we sit down to unpick why we thought or felt a particular way.

But there’s always a thread that connects the thoughts, the memories, and the emotions. Make sure that thread is clear for readers. Give your character an organic reason to think of the past – what has brought it to mind?

If the reader needs information about a non-point of view character, think how the point of view character can give that info to the reader organically.

• Do they have some shared past together to draw upon?
• Is there body language that might hint there’s more going on than what they’re saying?

Sensory details are a great thread to pull to connect with past memories or feelings, especially sound and smell.

• Ask what’s similar about the present and the past experience you need the character to recall?
• Is it a feeling?
• Is there a thematic connection: vulnerability, affection, betrayal, fear?

Dropping in backstory without some thread for context feels like author intrusion and usually involves far too much telling to explain why you’re writing about that past experience.

Sally wrapped her fingers around the mug of hot tea. Her fingertips finally warming, she traced the hairline cracks running down the sides of the cup, over the yellowed glue adhering the handle on. Sally smiled. Grandma had never thrown anything away.

Drip In Backstory

Backstory needs to be dripped in a drop at a time. Only give the reader what they absolutely must know in order to keep the story moving while understanding the point of view character’s motivations and desires. Generally, readers need far less backstory than we want to give them.

Keep in mind that we rarely dwell upon our most painful memories. We skim over them, we ignore them, we intellectualize them – all sorts of things. Focus on how those past events felt, and how those feelings colour the present to influence decisions and attitudes.

Beta readers and critique partners are our best assets to know how much detail the reader needs to understand what’s going on right now. With deep POV, it’s very easy to fall down a rabbit trail that leaves the character navel gazing or monologuing.

By keeping the backstory brief, you keep the pace moving. My personal rule is to keep backstory to no more than a sentence, even a sentence fragment. I don’t always keep that rule, but if I find the backstory waxing on for a paragraph or two, that’s usually a sign I’m telling the reader what’s going on instead of having the character experience what’s going on.

Answer One Question And Leave Readers With More

One of the pitfalls of including backstory is that it has a tendency to strip away the suspense in a story.

Use backstory to answer one reader question, but then leave them with two more.

She reached her hand through the crack in the door and groped for the light. Her heartbeat pounding against her throat. This was just like last time.

This is cliché, but do you see what I mean? Don’t give the reader ALL the information they need, just give them enough to keep leaning in.

Felora leaned against a corner post with her back to the street, cleaning her fingernails with a small blade. Edric repressed a smile. Even as a child, she’d hated getting her hands dirty but never had enough sense to stay out of the mud.

I needed readers to understand that Edric and Felora had known each other a long time and that Edric thought her impulsive and rash. That he looked down on her. Why does he look down on her? They find that out later. This is pure backstory, but it doesn’t read like it. It’s all filtered through the point of view character.

Barric trailed his hand across his father’s empty desk. It should be covered in ledgers and read missives and a vase of fresh flowers. No—his mother had always brought in flowers. Lady Eadyth thought flowers wasteful and decadent.

I’ve used Barric’s interaction with the setting to organically spark a memory and filter it through his perspective. I wanted readers to know that he’s been away from his childhood home long enough that it doesn’t feel quite like home anymore. Readers already know his father remarried and was murdered (the events not related), but I needed them to know that Barric wasn’t a fan of his step-mother. I also wanted to give some insight into his character. A man who doesn’t think a vase of fresh flowers is wasteful. Hmmm… Drip drip drip.

Keep it short. Keep it totally relevant.

Remember to filter it through the point of view character’s perspective and priorities even if it’s about another character.

Using Backstory As Context

Context is a great way to remove telling in deep POV, and sometimes we can use backstory to create that context.

Uncle Pete would know what to do. He was a twenty-year veteran of the RCMP.

Here, the author voice is explaining who Uncle Pete is to readers who haven’t met him yet. Instead, keeping the same point of view character, let’s use context and backstory to get the info to readers that Uncle Pete is an experienced cop without using the author voice to summarize or explain.

The engine roared to life and Pete hit the gas so hard gravel hit the garage behind the car like scatter shot. He pressed a button on the steering wheel. Phone rang once.

“Hey Chief! What’s up? Thought you were cooking turkey—”

“Call everyone in.” His voice was matter-of-fact, flat, but he strangled the steering wheel around the corner.

“Uhhh…” Ivy stuttered. “Everything OK?” Her tone deepened a smidge.

“Just do it. Now. Get everybody in.”

“Got it.”

The rewrite drips in the backstory of who Uncle Pete is, doesn’t employ the author voice, and keeps the story moving. The first way seems efficient, and it is, but often there’s a workaround that doesn’t use the author voice.

How much backstory do you use in your writing, and is there room to tighten it up to keep the pace flowing?

* * * * * *

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson is a writing teacher and award-winning writer and author. She’s the author of Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers. Her blog, Beyond Basics For Writers, explores all facets of the popular writing style deep point of view and offers practical tips for writers. 

She runs the free Facebook group Going Deeper With Emotions where she shares tips and videos on writing in deep point of view. 

Top Image by JPataG from Pixabay